


A New Path

by taibhrigh



Category: Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-29
Updated: 2010-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taibhrigh/pseuds/taibhrigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vaako makes his own decisions and his life begins changing and he can't even begin to blame Riddick...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Taking Out the Trash

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Tarlan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan) for the beta.
> 
> This story was written for smallfandomfest #5 on LJ.

"You keep what you kill," Vaako muttered under his breath. Right now he just wanted to kill the woman he had married for the peace it would bring him. No more of her nagging. No more of her strives for power, which he had let influence him to making a few really bad decisions. He'd miss the sex but he could find that elsewhere. Besides he had not laid a hand on her in weeks. He had married her solely because it was expected that a commander of his status would have a companion of status as well. That was the other thing, before she approached him, he had never cared what the nobles thought.

Her harping was never going to end. Even now, sitting at her dressing table, re-applying make-up she did not need, she was still yapping about killing the new Lord Marshal. Or Riddick as Vaako had been told to call the Lord Marshal. Hell, four weeks later and he was still happy that Riddick hadn't taken the death of his female companion out on him. Riddick had left him in his position while removing several other commanders who had tried to challenge him. The nobles who had spoken out publicly against the new Lord Marshal had simply never woken the next morning.

"Are you listening to me, dear husband?"

"No." She whirled on him ready to slap him across the face. "I would not finish that action," he said with a growl, "unless you wish for me to break your wrist." He moved away from her and to one of the small round windows in their quarters.

Dame Vaako lowered her hand but her glare darkened. "What has gotten into you husband?"

He smiled and it wasn't pleasant. Maybe he was spending too much time with Riddick. Maybe it was because he had skipped his last two weekly purifications. And maybe he was finally waking up and coming to his senses. "I am contemplating divorce, dear wife."

Her sharp inhalation of breath almost made him laugh. "You wouldn't dare!" She moved to seat herself at her dressing table as if the conversation was at an end because Vaako would never follow through on the thought--wanting to believe he was still under her thumb. Until that was, when he spoke again.

"I believe I would."

Her screech of rage was much as he imagined a banshee would as she spun off her chair to face him, this time clutching a dainty penknife. "You keep what you kill," she sneered while charging at him, "and I'd get your place at his ear."

Vaako laughed as he seized her wrist and with a vicious twist snapped her wrist back and up so the knife with her hand still wrapped around the handle plunged into her own chest. As she began to wilt towards the floor her other hand tried to find purchase on the bloody handle but failed. He straddled her body and leaned down to whisper into her ear. "I guess I no longer have to worry about a divorce."

Before straightening he whispered one more thing into her ear and then leaned back to watch her expression as the life drained from her body.

_"I have more than his ear."_

* * *

"I see you finally got rid of the nagging bitch."

Vaako snorted at the Lord Marshal but continued to flip through the daily activity reports before speaking. Not surprised that the Furyan knew the events of several days ago. He was sure his actions had made it to the tiniest freighter in their armada. "It is now quiet in my quarters."

This time Riddick snorted. "She'd been slithering up to a few more nobles and couple of your low level grunts about sending me off to that Underverse of yours." Translation: eventually I would have killed her myself.

Vaako glanced out the large window in the Lord Marshal's quarters and flicked his wrist to indicate about a dozen or so items floating in the empty vacuum of space. "Those would be the bodies floating out there?"

"Yeah." Riddick swung his booted feet up to rest on the table. "Easy to get them all into one room with an airlock and out they went."

The bodies were too far from the window to actually identify. "Anyone I'm going to need to replace?"

"Doubt it."

Vaako tossed the reports down and looked straight into Riddick's silver eyes. "Anyone else you plan on removing from this 'verse that I should know about?"

Riddick dropped his feet from the table and leaned across it. "Why," he smirked, "you want to help me?"

"Thinking about it."

* * *

The frigate Claw had two hundred people on it before he and the Lord Marshal had arrived--a mix of civilian personal, low-level nobles and large number of soldiers. It had also once been under the command of Commander Toal. Thanks to a three bladed ax, he was now lying in pieces on the right side of the room. Vaako was going to have to replace another commander. As Riddick was fond of saying, they had taken out the trash. The Claw was now down about fifty people and a lot of the rooms and halls were going to need to be sanitized.

This had been the third ship they had been through and he was wondering if the rest of the armada would fall into line behind the new Lord Marshal or risk being the next ship cleaned.

"This has been fun," Riddick grinned as he slid down the wall to sit next to his partner.

The knife that dangled from Vaako's left hand was still dripping blood as he used his right hand to flake off the drying blood from his arm. "I'm in need of a shower," he said but returned the grin.

Riddick reached over and grasped Vaako by the back of the neck and pulled him in close. "That can be arranged," the Furyan said huskily before bringing their lips together for a heated kiss. "Let's get off this boat."


	2. Change Can Be Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vaako's life has changed since the deaths of the old Lord Marshal and his wife and he can't even blame it all on Riddick.

Vaako's clothes were somewhat caked in blood and other substances best not thought of. The dried blood on his skin was itchy and annoying. He stripped when he entered the outer room of the bathing chamber, piling the lightweight armor he'd worn to one side to be cleaned. He carefully stacked his weapons on a table to be cleaned and sharpened if needed. The rest of his clothes were tossed in a bin on the floor to be burned; as were the ties that had held his hair back.

He walked into the bathing chamber and pushed several buttons to set water temperature and pressure before stepping under the spray and letting the water wash the blood and grime down the drain. He ran his fingers through his hair to dislodge dirt and more dried blood. Once done with the rest of his body and hair Vaako finally unwrapped the bandage that was around his right bicep to inspect and clean the wound.

"That need stitches?" Riddick asked from the doorway before stripping down as Vaako had and then joining the other man under the water sprays.

"No, appears to be healing." And that was true. Vaako only remembered parts of his life before being converted and since he hadn't been back to the purification rooms in more than six weeks he had to believe his quick healing ability was part of who he was before. Just like the tattoos that ran around his left shoulder and down a section of his back. Just like his ability to retain knowledge.

Riddick took his partner's arm and checked the wound himself. "Rewrap it when we get out."

Vaako gave the other man a look that clearly said "no shit" before shoving him into the wall for a kiss that he ended quickly so he could inspect the gash running down Riddick's ribs. Pressing around the wound he gently cleaned out the grime before repeating the Furyan's earlier words. "We'll wrap this when we get out."

Riddick grunted and reversed their positions, grinding their lower bodies together while using his tongue to trace the patterns on Vaako's shoulder.

Vaako shifted and Riddick's quick intake of breath meant the new angle had been better for both of them. "You are still fascinated by the lines," he panted.

The Furyan smirked then reached between their bodies. "There's a lot about you that will always fascinate me."

* * *

The Lord Marshal's chamber was sizable. The chamber was made of several rooms from the antechamber that led to a small conference or dining room and then to two bathing chambers, an office, and three bedrooms. It's position in the Basilica made it very secure. Especially since most thought there was only a single door in and out of the chamber, but in reality there were several hidden doors--some leading out into hallways, some leading into other rooms, but all connected via hidden passageways that lead all throughout the ship. Vaako had never known all the passageways until now when he called the chamber theirs.

Vaako was unsure if Zhylaw--the old Lord Marshal--had even known about the passageways or if he simply believed that he really was an all powerful being that didn't need to see all the tools available to him. Riddick was not that, but he did play a lot of things close to his chest. He knew Riddick listened to only a few people on the ship and trusted maybe two--him and the Elemental that was still hanging around. Though he knew the Elemental often grated on Riddick's nerves with her vague, philosophical answers and her calculations that might or might not mean anything to anyone but her.

Since Riddick's rule had begun Vaako had changed many things about himself; most of them had been decisions he'd made with no one else's concerns in mind but his own. He'd willingly stopped his purifications. Then, if he admitted it to himself, goaded the ex-Dame Vaako into attacking him so that he could remove her permanently from his life. He'd gotten rid of the tiny braids in his hair that she had insisted were the style and moved to just tying it back--though he was tempted to cut it all off. He'd started an affair with Riddick and was now sharing the Lord Marshal's quarters.

The thing that probably had the most impact on him since Lord Marshal Riddick's rule: he was no longer First Among Commanders. That title now belonged to one of Vaako's trusted sub-commanders. Riddick had chosen a new title for Vaako, one from his time in the military; something that truly reflected everything Vaako did, especially since Riddick saw himself more as a General than a Lord of anything. _Executive Officer._

Riddick's hands on his bare shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. The Furyan's thumb unconsciously tracing another section of his tattoo. "Eat," was all the man said as he stepped away to sit at the table.

Vaako lifted an eyebrow at the other man but put the data pad down and began eating. The most annoying change, at least for him, was his need to actually eat every day. Which in turn had added a little bulk to his underweight frame and given his pale skin back some color. He no longer looked like a walking corpse. He also felt stronger and more himself in his own head.

"Anything on that I need to know?" Riddick asked between bites.

Vaako would have ignored the question because if there had been he would have already told the other man. "Pine," a support tech that Riddick had befriend after flushing some nobles out of an airlock, "says the chatter on the Rift has died down after news of the events on the Claw began to spread."

Riddick nodded. "Good, let's move this armada somewhere then."

"Do you have a destination in mind?"

"Yeah," Riddick leaned back on the table so he could look down at his XO's face. "We're going back to Crematoria. I have some unfinished business there and a couple of things I want to pickup. You might even score some willing converts out of the deal."

"They'll have to be purified or we'll get nothing out of them," Vaako responded, lifting his hand to run up Riddick's inner thigh before squeezing it lightly. "And if the beasts you intend to bring onboard eat any of my staff I'm going to be pissed."

Riddick only smiled.


	3. Better Than Expected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to Crematoria has Vaako a little worried.

From his last visit here, Vaako knew that Crematoria was one screwed up planet. The extreme temperature change between the day side and night side of the planet only gave two windows of fifteen minutes each where life could exist on the surface and not fry or freeze almost instantly. Everything for this mission had to be planned to the second or his soldiers would die.

Riddick had commented that when he'd departed in Toombs ship several months earlier, hoping to catch up with Kyra before she was converted or killed, that he'd left the planet's landing bay door open. That door was now closed; it meant someone was home down below.

"Just remember what I said, about those beasts eating any my staff." He reminded the Lord Marshal.

Riddick gave his XO a small smile. "Don't worry, they'll be well behaved."

"For you maybe," Vaako said under his breath before giving the First Among Commanders the signal to move in as he and Riddick followed behind the troops.

* * *

Slams don't care who the Management is as long as someone takes the job; and a convict in the role could be just as ruthless as the next man when it came to money. Though, they were less likely to fix the cameras in the tunnels leading to the main part of the prison, because really who would break into a triple max slam on a planet like Crematoria.

The skiff had obviously been repaired as it once again sat at the bottom of the stairs that were connected to the loading bay. It would have made more sense to only send the skiff up top when needed and to keep it parked midway between the two stops. "Sloppy." Riddick shook his head at the stupidity that continued at this place. "Keep your heads down back there," he said with a grin getting into the front of the skiff.

The 29.4 kilometer skiff ride was uneventful for the Lord Marshall, his XO, a support tech, and the eight Necromonger warriors riding in the back. Another twenty warriors were either making their way down on foot or patrolling the tracks and entrance.

It seemed the Slam had been busy during the last three months picking up more than three dozen new inmates. But in the end, the whole takeover was rather anticlimactic and over before Riddick got a chance to get involved. The inmates put up a small fight resulting in ten of them being injured and three dying. Toombs was among the dead and not by Riddick's hand. Vaako had sent the soldier responsible for that "incident" off to guard the Support Tech trying to get the second skiff working as it would be bad for morale of the new converts if the Lord Marshal killed a man for doing the job he'd been assigned.

The Lord Marshal prowled around the caverns while his men rounded up the inmates and started transporting them to the surface. "You following me?"

"That goes without saying." Vaako handed the Furyan a set of keys. "Thought you could use these instead of ramming the door like a bull."

Riddick took the keys and Vaako's wrist, pulling the other man to him for a quick kiss and grope. "Stay next to me in the room."

Vaako refrained from snorting out loud; from what he knew of Hellhounds that was going to be the safest place to be. Well, outside of not being in the room, that was. But he had put his trust and his life into Riddick's hands and the other man had not yet let him down.

The room had a dozen cages in it and it was obvious that not all the cages were meant to hold the hounds by the debris that was left behind. As soon as they entered the hounds started to howl until Riddick knelt down in front of one of the cages. When the first one stopped the other quieted down. "There's only two of them?"

"Did I not mention that?"

"No."

"Did you ask?"

Vaako shoved the kneeling man so that Riddick had to either catch himself with his fingers or tumble into the cage. "Oh, don't you even start growling at me for that," he told the hellhound, which much to his surprise quieted the growl to a mere murmur of the noise it had been producing before.

Riddick popped the lock on the first cage and taking a large slab of meat from the bag he carried, tossed it to the ground before swinging the cage door open and stepping back. The hound jumped from its pen, sniffed the air, sniffed at the two men, and then made straight for the meat. The Furyan repeated the same actions, without the shoving, with the second hound. This hound circled the two men, growling softly before it too headed for the meat.

Vaako put a hand on Riddick's shoulder and whispered softly. "I sure the hell hope you know what you're doing because you're cleaning up all their messes."

"That's what we have those ex-nobles for."

* * *

The two hellhounds took to the Basilica as if they had always lived there. They mainly followed either the Lord Marshal or his XO from place to place or stayed in an area of the ship the Lord Marshal had quartered off for them. Those Necromongers who couldn't follow directions learned quickly after a wild run through the halls.

Vaako watched from the shadows as the latest Noble got a little to close to the Lord Marshal's door and realized a second too late that a hound, Storm, was sleeping in the hallway about the time his overly decorative outfit made noise and Storm lifted his head and yawned. The man started backing up and then began running when the hound stood. Storm looked over his shoulder at Vaako before bouncing down the hallway after the man.

"And where is your Shadow?" Vaako asked into the dark shadows of the hallway.

Riddick didn't answer him, just wrapped his arms around him and drew him further back into the darkness. Vaako would have to remind the other man to stop removing all of the light crystals from this section of the hall as not everyone could see in the dark. Though that thought escaped him a second later when Riddick kissed the back of his neck before turning them around so that his back was pushed up against the wall. The next kiss was rough and full of heat and led to groping by both sides that continued to hands moving and sliding under clothes.

The sounds of claws clicking on the floor announced the return of Storm and Shadow. "Now we can turn in for the night," Riddick palmed the door open. "See, they aren't as bad as you thought."

"Better than I expected," Vaako said in agreement, following the other man into their chambers. "So, what's next on this agenda of yours?"

Riddick quirked an eyebrow at the other man.

"Besides sex."

Riddick closed his eyes for a second, thinking of a planet named Hades with a solar eclipse that lasted several months and was not due to occur again for at least a decade. Those raptors could meet their end with the Ascension Protocol from this ship. "I have a planet I want to remove all life from, but we can do that tomorrow," he said, divesting them both of their clothing and pulling Vaako into their sleeping chambers.


	4. Cleansing Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vaako helps Riddick fulfill a promise he made to himself.

Vaako knew what Hades meant to the Lord Marshal; he was the only one that did. Some would call it a weakness in the Lord Marshal, Vaako called it a factor that shaped the man that now sat on the throne and whose bed and chambers he gladly shared.

"I have a planet I want to remove all life from," Riddick had said the night before and Vaako was going to help make that happen. It would take a day to get the Armada turned around and to put most of the people into cyrosleep for the journey. And he was going to have to find a way to keep the Lord Marshal occupied during the trip, as he was positive Riddick wouldn't want to sleep the whole way to M6-117.

Hades wasn't truly a planet but a desert moon that could support life. It's three suns kept the moon in a perpetual day cycle that lasted about twenty-two years. Then for only a few months the moon would be plunged into the darkness of night as all the suns and M6-117 lined up into a solar eclipse.

There were remnants of passed life on the moon. It consisted mostly of the bones of animals from a small rodent-like creature to an animal that was probably twice the size of an elephant. In one or two locations on the moon the remains of abandoned human settlements could be found. And, strewn across one of the desert plains was the wreckage of a cargo transport that had the unfortunate mishap to crash on a day before the eclipse.

Now Hades' only resident was a cave dwelling raptor creature that could fly but not survive in the light of the suns and Riddick was going to kill them all. The Ascension Protocol fired from the Basilica would destroy all life on the moon and Vaako had no doubt that the Lord Marshal would cackle like a madman was he prone to such public outbursts.

* * *

Sex and sparring seemed to be what Riddick had in mind to pass the time. Vaako found it was generally the sparring that lead to sex no matter where they might have been practicing at the time--from the actually practice chambers to the throne room. Though, Vaako had squeezed in some time to read through the libraries and research the true pasts of the Necromongers and previous Lord Marshals.

When Riddick found Vaako reading through planetary histories in the Lord Marshal's office, an office Vaako used more than he did, the second time since they began sharing chambers, he'd started calling Vaako the Warrior Scholar. The fact that Vaako spent time in there now while they had a respite from everything else didn't surprise either one of them. Knowledge was a powerful tool and Vaako could impart that knowledge to Riddick in ways the other man appreciated.

Vaako stretched as he stood from the data pad covered desk and began to move through the mostly dark chamber towards the small dining room that connected all three bedrooms. The two hellhounds were sprawled on the floor of the room, lightly dozing. "Out of your playpen I see," Vaako said to the hounds that had both moved to sit up when Vaako moved to the cooling unit. "Expect me to feed you, don't you?"

Storm moved to rub his head against Vaako's thigh and Vaako obliged the hellhound by scratching his ears.

"You could let them go hunting through the ship?"

Vaako ignored Riddick and tossed the two hounds their meal. Both took their dinner off to the sleeping chamber Riddick had some engineer convert into a hellhound playpen complete with rock outcroppings, sand floors and some type of self-feeding watering and air filtration system. He imagined that the engineer thought at least for his well-being, if not the rest of the ship, that if the hellhounds were happy and kept mostly locked away in the Lord Marshal's chambers the less likely he would end up a meal.

For their safety, Vaako had forced the issue and both he and Riddick had entered cryosleep for part of the middle cycle of the journey. He'd left tranquilizing and then waking the hounds to Riddick. They'd awakened three days ago and Riddick had woken the hounds a day later. They were now back to what passed as mellow for them.

"Find anything in those books of yours?" Riddick asked sitting down at the table and reaching for items off the platter of food that was there.

"Yes." Vaako hand the Furyan a cup of tea before joining him at the table. "Those raptor things weren't native to Hades. Seems the planet was a science station for some civilization that no longer exists."

"Left their mess there before hauling ass off the rock."

Vaako continued. "The records were from the time of the second Lord Marshal and then nothing after that for Hades or any of its neighboring planets or moons."

"You can update the entry very soon."

* * *

Within a week of arriving at Hades the Armada was back in full running status. Support personnel going about their business, warriors in training, the new converts from Crematoria finally settling in, and the nobles were still vying for power.

Vaako was reconsidering Riddick's idea of letting the bitching nobles battle it out in single combat like the warriors who had conflicts with each other did; after all they still lived by the policy of keeping what they killed. "You told me it would be too messy," Riddick whispered into his ear.

"Perhaps it would be worth it the first few times."

Riddick grinned before barking his next order. "Start the Ascension Protocol and rotate the ship so I have a clear view."

Vaako watched as Riddick stood next to the device, waiting for the highly decorative plunger to lift into the first stage of the firing sequence. The Lord Marshal stared out at the display of the moon while his right hand twisted the plunger and pushed it down. Vaako was the only one who heard him whisper "fire" or saw the wide grin that split the other man's face as destruction radiated out from each of the conquest icons driven into the moon's surface.

Eventually, the whole surface was one single mass of fire, cleansing the moon of its monsters, and closing another chapter in Riddick's life, leaving him free to find a new path, with Vaako.

-end-


End file.
